


From the Rooftop to the Kitchen Floor

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [12]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Baby BatCat, Budding Romance, F/M, Father Figures, First Meetings, Gen, Late Night Ventures, These two are crazy kids, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6769303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah, to be young and in love... and reckless.  Wild.  Crazy.  Accident-Prone.</p>
<p>'Tis a grand thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Rooftop to the Kitchen Floor

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little light-hearted bit to feature Baby BatCat, because we simply can't get enough of them. :)

It’s about two in the morning when the lower level of Falcone Manor is shaken by an unholy crash and a resounding yelp of pain that acoustically clashes with the furious snarl of a distressed adolescent tiger. From her safety perch on the kitchen counter, Selina winces a little as cathedral ceilings echo each and every sound with distinct clarity. And she starts counting the seconds.

It started out innocently enough: common sense and logic advised that returning to Wayne Manor at this morning hour—an hour which very few reasonable people even consider “morning”—will end in sweat, blood, tears, and lots of shouting voices. Alfred Pennyworth is a man who likes things just so, who isn’t much for surprises or uninvited presences at any hour, let alone one during which his young charge is meant to be tucked in bed and not traipsing throughout the city; as such, Selina reasoned, trying to sneak back into the house was doomed to fail. More so, of the two manors, the one in which she personally hangs her hat was much closer to the back alley she’d dragged Bruce into, biding time until their pack of very unwanted pursuers chased by, thankfully oblivious the change in course made by their sought prey.

The plan seemed rational and, in a way that surprised even Selina herself, wholly in the interest of self-preservation. Slipping through the gate was easy enough, teaching Bruce to follow equally so, and without any guards posted in between, tip-toeing up the drive was a smooth little venture. By the time they reached the kitchen window, Selina was feeling smugly confident that this evening—admittedly one in which nearly everything possible went so very wrong—was about to end on a gentle note.

And then Bruce, following her lead through the window, caught his foot around the sink faucet. Scrambling for something to hold, he only managed to find a dish towel as an anchor; considering the grip he had and the angle at which he fell, it’s half a miracle he didn’t take the cabinet down with him. He did, however, manage to take himself, legs flailing all the way, straight to the floor, right on top of Shakta, who was either dozing in the kitchen or came to investigate the sound of someone slinking through the window. Either way, she was very quickly disturbed by all 99 pounds of Bruce Wayne dropping on her.

Selina slowly swallows, as the last resonates of chaos fade away, and delicately leans over the counter edge. “You still alive?” she whispers. It’s pointless to whisper, yes—if no one in this house was awakened by that racket, she’ll start believing in God—but neither will projecting her voice help the matter.

“You tell me.” Bruce answers, sounding like the wind’s been knocked out of him, twice. From what she can see, illumination from the house lamps offering a few scant glimpses here and there, he’s presently staring, wide-eyed, at Shakta, who is perched over him, glowering downward. Selina’s not sure if the tiger is debating whether to eat Bruce, or just swat him across the face.

Five seconds later, Shakta chooses the latter option. Then she stalks away with a dignified sniff. Selina breathes relief, then drops silently, and with much more grace, to the floor and sees to her breathless companion. She has a thought to quip about him keeping up with her, or even be exceptionally inappropriate and ask if it was good for him. 

Then the kitchen lights flick on, the entire room is flooded in blinding illumination, and they’ve got bigger problems than someone being cheeky. She’s personally sporting an array of scrapes across one cheek, bruised and bloodied knuckles on both hands, and her jacket has been ripped and mangled in five places. Bruce Wayne is lying on the floor, equally bruised and battered; his tailored slacks have stains with unknown origins all over the cuffs, there’s a trickle of blood down his collar from a nose injury9, and his hair is a mess.

And both Iris and Zsasz are standing in the kitchen doorway, each leaning against a respective side of the wall, looking way too put-together and at ease for this hour of the morning—and, really, Selina wonders, does the man actually wear his button-ups and slacks to bed?—and wearing smiles that translate dangerous waters ahead.

“Good evening.” Iris says sweetly; she’s wearing a dark teal dressing gown, arms gracefully folded across her chest, and her smile is showcasing all those white teeth that suddenly look rather sharp, like a crocodile. “Which one of you would like to start explaining?”

***

It was at Bruce’s fifth birthday celebration that he first recalls the tall, looming shadow of Marcus DeLaine crossing his parents’ threshold. Dark-haired, pale-eyed, and dressed in a pale grey suit, Bruce considered this strange man with wide eyes, and wondered. Wondered, as his father greeted their unexpected guest with stiff formality—a far cry from his usual kindly mannerisms—and a hesitant invitation to take their business into the sitting room, what it was about this man that set him on edge.

Thirty minutes later, a woman of equal height, slender build, and similar coloring strolled past Alfred as though it were her right to do so—Bruce remembers Alfred having a few choice words about the matter, later that night—with one manicured hand locked tight around the shoulder of a young girl, while calling for her husband. What followed was, in Alfred’s words, “two elephant bull seals tearing each other up for a scrap of sand and a herd of heifers”, and all the while Bruce remembers staring with great intent at the silent third party. Her eyes, such a startling shade of blue, and so completely hollow. Even as a little boy, Bruce wondered why, and how. Wondered and wondered, but at five years old, without the capacity to make inquiries.

He wonders if now, at fourteen, he might possess a more confident tongue.

Selina is quietly tending to his injuries, the First Aid kit open on the kitchen counter beside them, and at his feet, reaching quite to his seat, Shakta is steadily circling with blue eyes sharp and piercing. He squirms a little, and Selina gruffly tells him to knock it off.

Across the room, visible through arched thresholds and the warm glow of households lamps mounted along the walls, he can see Miss DeLaine and her male companion, quietly speaking together. If not for the vividness of her eyes, Bruce knows he would never associate this woman with the hollow-gazed figure from years prior. She stands taller, with grace and dignity, dressed like royal elite; the stiff-limbed form and retreating posture is long gone, without any trace to hint of its’ existence.

The man standing at her side—so very close to her side, in fact…would it be right to presume them lovers? Who else would possess the right to be so very near one’s personal space?—is equally well-dressed, and stands with great ease in a place of such obvious, albeit tasteful, wealth. Bruce thinks him an equal to Miss DeLaine and himself: someone born into a world of privilege and status, with a proper surname and family background. Even so, he physically presents as something different, something and someone altogether beyond the norm, so to speak. He has no facial fair, skin naked and exposed, his blue eyes sharp but seeming much too large on his face, in the absence of eyebrows or eyelashes. His clothes are well-tailored, but dark, very dark; more an extension of the shadows than someone meant to live in the light.

This man must notice Bruce’s silent staring, because his blue eyes suddenly flick to the right, and now Bruce forcibly locks his limbs to avoid trembling under the icy scrutiny of such a gaze. Those eyes glimmer strangely, dangerously: predatory, wild, like an animal uncaged and biding time with its prey before the final strike.

And then the man blinks, and whatever Bruce saw—or thinks he saw; perhaps it was a trick of the light, or perhaps he’s just been staying out way too late these past weeks and the lack of sleep is messing with his head—is gone. The man murmurs something to Miss DeLaine, and both return to the kitchen, the latter with a gracious smile playing across her lips. “I think this will do, Selina.” She says, nodding approvingly over Selina’s work on his many cuts, scrapes, bruises, and other associated damages. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse us, come with me upstairs, _mon feline_ , so I can attend to the mess you have made of yourself. Victor, do you think you could show Bruce to a room for the evening? Or, morning. As it stands.”

The man named Victor nods with an accompanying hum; Selina roves her eyes towards Bruce with a strange little quirk to her mouth, something that almost looks like a warning, but he can’t make heads or tails of it, and Miss DeLaine already has a hand steering her from the kitchen and around the corner. The blue-eyed gaze returns to him, with the demeanor of a perfect gentleman, and Bruce thinks the lacking sleep really is distorting his perception of reality. This man looks as kindly as can be, and even extends a helpful hand while Bruce carefully negotiates his way off the bar stool, mindful of his heavily-bruised knees.

“Thank you, sir.” He offers with his best smile; let Alfred never be told Bruce Wayne forgets his manners, no matter the hour of day or night.

The man called Victor responds in kind, flashing a smile of very straight and very white teeth while guiding him around the corner, to a set of red-carpeted stairs, then to the upper levels, where the plush red carpet extends in a solitary stripe down the hallway. The blue-eyed man shows Bruce to a room, third door on the left, bids him a good evening, and leaves without further incident.

A strange man, Bruce thinks to himself, while stripping free of stained trousers and sweater, but surely a good man. He can’t imagine Miss DeLaine would permit anyone less to share her company so closely.

***

“I just do not know _what_ I am to do with you, young lady.” Iris sighs, head shaking, carefully preparing a salve for Selina’s knuckles while she soaks in a hot bath. “If you are to have a young man on his back, it most certainly should not be on the kitchen floor, for goodness’ sake! The different objects and surfaces against which you could cause serious injury to yourself and him number in the dozens! Honestly, Selina, have I taught you _nothing_ these past months?”

“You’re really going to tell me you’ve never had Zsasz on a floor?” Selina retorts; the subject matter is borderline inappropriate, but it’s a suitable distraction from rubbing dead and broken skin off her knees, so she’ll take it. And, more to the point, of all the people to be lecturing selectivity of places to have an hour’s worth of passion—or whatever—she doubts Iris DeLaine is the most suitable.

But, par for the course, Iris doesn’t even blush or blink at the accusation. “I have _never_ had that man on the floor, missy.” She replies, eyebrows in an arch to rival the Golden Gate Bridge, lips pursed just enough to indicate prim disapproval. “He has significant need for his spine to be intact and fully functional, as do I.”

“And you actually think that far ahead in the heat of things?”

“When in heat, though I will have you know that is a highly inaccurate way to describe the vast majority of our sexual encounters,” Selina chooses to let the golden opportunity opened by _vast majority_ slide right by, “there has, to date, never not been a perfectly good, perfectly sturdy, perfectly available wall. And you will do well to remember that.”

“Got it, _Mom_.” She quips, earning a light pinch for her cheek, and drains the bath. Iris is ready, waiting with a towel and the prepared salve; after Selina towels herself dry, she’s tucked within the plush lilac folds and sits on the bath rim while Iris tends to her damaged knuckles and various scraped appendages. The ones on her face sting the most.

There is a calming peace to the quiet moments that follow, while Iris is on crouched knee, treating each injury with a care and attentiveness that, after all this time, really must be second-nature to her, and Selina lets her mind wander. She thinks over all the things she did tonight which ordinarily would warrant severe lecturing, if not corporal punishment, and above all, her only scolding is for being found with Bruce on his back in the kitchen. It makes her smile, broadly, because it holds true to Iris’ promise, spoken very early on in this arrangement: _“You have free reign, my dearest girl, provided you always return to me, and never with some injury I cannot heal or a broken limb I cannot reset.”_

Then, words that followed a rather unfortunate incident leaving her nearly with two broken wrists and another severely sprained ankle enter her thoughts, _“Just remember: whatever I cannot fix, I am confident Victor can, unless you are dead, in which case you are beyond both of our aid”_ , and she giggles.

“What?” Iris asks, eyebrows lifting in coy amusement.

“It’s just…” Selina shrugs, slipping out of the towel and into a lace-fringed nightdress, “…Whenever I imagined what family I might end up in, this wasn’t what I expected. I always pictured rules, and regulations, and people who wanted me to do this and be there and not do this, that, and everything. Put me in pretty dresses and shoes and make me behave like a lady. Make me someone I’m not.”

“Am I right to presume, then,” Iris sets the First Aid supplies aside and washes her hands clean, still eyeing the young blonde in her reflection, “despite being guilty of dressing you up like a lady, you do not hold the offense against me?”

“You don’t dress me up to change me.” She answers, quietly perching on her mattress, legs tucked to her chest. “You do it, and talk me through it, and I feel…I feel like you’re trying to make me better. Make me something better than who and what I am.”

The smile lifting Iris’ lips is a familiar one: a smile always indicating there’s a story to be told, but now isn’t the time to tell it, so Selina is just left with an obscure reassurance that, whatever the tale yet to be told, Iris understands every word coming out of her mouth and doesn’t regard it as the mindless ramblings of a teenager.

“Sleep well, _mon petite_.” Iris murmurs. “Chase your dreams, for once, instead of danger. I will see you in a few hours.”

***

The bed is a haven of down feathers, cotton, and wool, and he quickly cocoons himself within their folds like an eager child, burrowing deep in the cushion of four pillows. Hardly anything unique, by comparison to the luxury of his own bed, but after spending more nights on a concrete rooftop than a plush mattress, everything feels wonderfully new and yet comfortingly familiar. He breathes out relief and contentment, listens to it echo in the empty space around him, and then the bedroom door opens with a click so soft, he nearly thinks he imagines it.

But then his half-opened gaze spots a figure slip through a narrow crack in the door, close it once more, and then move forward, to the bed, with silent grace and a stride he recognizes only too well. It’s a little odd to see her in lace and silk instead of well-worn leather and scuffed denim, but he rather think the look suits her.

…Not that he’s staring. At all.

No words are exchanged; he thinks to question or object when she slips beneath his bedcovers like it’s the most natural thing to do, but in place of the coy smirk he’s expecting, there’s a shy little smile on her lips that spreads warmth through his veins, like a warm burst of sunshine on the skin, or a hot bath after a long and tiring day, or the familiar warmth of a well-loved and well-aged blanket.

Selina buries her face under the covers, leaving only a head of mussed golden curls and two eyes visible above the duvet line. Exhaustion takes her much quicker, much sooner; he is allowed a few minutes more to drink in the image, engrain it on his memory, take note of the small details—the dusting of sandy freckles across her cheeks and nose, the feathery slope of her eyelashes, the way a few curls lie loose across her forehead and he wants to reach out and stroke them aside, for a reason he can’t identify. This is the peace after the storm; the lulling vision after a wild escalation comparable to a hurricane.

He smiles. Then, before he loses his nerve, leans forward to peck her forehead—her curls tickle—and dart back into the protective shelter of warm covers.

“Good night, Selina.”

***

The bedroom door opens and closes with barely a pause between, and this time Iris slides the lock in place. Selina isn’t known for venturing through certain doors, this bedroom being one of them, but with her particularly adventurous tendencies as of late, better to put certain safety measures in place than endure a small spectacle.

She lets the dressing gown slide free of her shoulders and pool at the floor in a shimmering heap of silk and lace. In the warm golden glow from her bedside lamp, dark blue eyes run unchecked over the miles and miles of naked flesh with fire at their core. She smiles, taking her time in moving forward, closer to the bed and the man waiting half-covered in sheets.

“I like this view.” She murmurs, finally settling at the mattress edge and gliding under covers with grace. “Just as I left you.”

“Well,” Victor answers, one hand running warmly up her side and pausing only when his thumb rests in the delicate bow of her lower lip, “not quite.”

Her eyebrow lifts demurely. “Would you care to elaborate, Mr. Zsasz? Your exact meaning escapes me.”

His smile is wicked, borders on sinful in nature, and what he does next is most assuredly not fit for civilized conversation. But it can never be said he is not exceptionally talented as expressing himself, one way or another.

***

Alfred Pennyworth arrives at precisely half past three the following afternoon, parks the Bentley near the front gate, and begins the steady trek up a handsome stone walkway. His mind is full of many a thing to say, the majority concerning the absolute recklessness of this whole mess and the rest concerning a phone call before he even had his morning cup of tea, advising him that the young man he put to bed last night was found on the kitchen floor, on the other side of Gotham, at some ungodly hour of the morning.

He’ll ground the boy for a month. No, three months. No, to his eighteenth birthday. And the windows will need to be fitted for bars, and he’ll call for a new alarm system on the front and back doors. And he’ll fit that boy with an iron ball and chain, if need be, plus twenty-five pounds of lead weights, and—

A very tall, very broad, and very familiar figure greets him at the door, but unlike their previous encounter, the man called Butch seems less like a pompous, pug-faced gorilla and more a respectable, respectful gentleman. He neatly hangs Alfred’s coat and hat near the door, then fetches him a fresh cup of tea to replace the one he never quite drank this morning.

The lad either had a life-changing experience, or received a swift knock upside the head. Either way, Alfred is impressed.

This place is one of notoriety, of rumors and dark tales, but inside there is light, and warm colors, and tasteful old-world accents. A place that feels like a palace, from some foreign land beyond Gotham’s colorless streets and dark skies. It reminds him pleasantly of Switzerland, of the mountains and the little village rich with culture and life. He supposes, of all the places Bruce could drop in, there are certainly worse.

“Mr. Pennyworth,” a woman’s voice greets from the foyer, and he takes a minute to collect himself, because the woman coming towards him bears a resemblance to the insubordinate little wench who walked all over his shoes, ten-some years ago. But, as she comes into the light, the resemblance withers to pale skin and dark hair; this lovely creature bears kinder features, ones with elegance put on grand display by the sweet smile on her lips and the friendly shimmer in her eyes.

“Miss DeLaine,” he murmurs, taking care to kiss her knuckles in place of some common handshake, “my goodness. Time has been good to you.”

“Separation from my parents has been even kinder.” She replies, with a curious little edge to her voice that he finds impressive. “Please, do come and sit. Bruce and Selina are finishing lunch now; I imagine they will be done shortly.”

He supposes it should come as no shock that Bruce has been traipsing about with the little alley cat. This is what comes from isolation in youth: terrible choices in life and even worse in kept company.

She gestures him to a plush leather chair, one of two before the lit hearth, and settles in the second with graceful poise. Butch brings her a glass of water and refills the tea for Alfred, and a comfortable peace settles between them for a half hour, intermixed with conversation. He finds her a pleasant sort of company, not unlike the dear Missus Wayne, and a knowledgeable one at that. This is the sort of company Bruce ought to be keeping: a respectable, proper lady of society, not an unruly ragamuffin with preference for black leather and torn jeans.

“My apologies,” another voice, this one a man, says at the entryway, “I didn’t know we were entertaining.”

Miss DeLaine smiles coyly, gesturing forward with one hand, “Alfred Pennyworth, I would like you to meet my fiancé, Victor Zsasz.”

This fellow is a strange-looking one, but well-dressed and, one must assume, of the same caliber as his betrothed. That being said, he has sharp eyes. Dangerous eyes. Eyes of a tiger, a lion, a wild animal crouched in the shadows with teeth bared and claws scraping the dirt before it scrapes muscle from bone. Alfred has seen eyes like this before, mounted on the faces of men prepared to kill and never surrender. It trickles tension down his spine, makes his fingers twitch, wanting the sturdy form of a gun fit to his palm…

…and then the man reaches out a hand, a polite expression on his face, and a smile on his lips. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Pennyworth.”

Hesitation demonstrates poor manners, and Alfred Pennyworth is not a man of poor manners. He takes hold of the man’s hand in the customary gesture, and _Bloody Hell_ does this fellow have a _grip_.

“Alfred?” Finally, the one voice his ears have been listening for in the last forty-five minutes, and he turns on heel to find his young charge loitering in the foyer. “You…you didn’t have to come. I would have called a taxi. Or walked.”

“Oh, believe me,” he says, fixing the most unpleasant expression humanly possible across his face, “you still might.”


End file.
